


Barbed Wire

by orphan_account



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Psychological Trauma, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 23:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12143676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Soulbonds aren't a matter of want; they're a matter of need. The thing is, Sakura neitherwantsnorneedsto be irrevocably cleaved to a former enemy and would-be murderer of her teammates. As for what Gaara of the Sand could possibly need fromher, she hasn't a clue.





	Barbed Wire

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the thing! I'm generally disinterested in soulmate AUs (that is, disinterested in _writing_ them; when it comes to reading them, I eat that shit up with a spoon). Caveat: I'm disinterested in writing soulmate AUs _unless_ the soulbond in question is literally the last thing at least one of the two parties involved could possibly ever want, ideal reactions sitting somewhere on a scale of _fuck no_ to _death would be preferable_. 
> 
> I can think of a lot of soulbonds that Sakura would hate more, but a Sakura on the cusp of her character development irrevocably linked to an only recently reformed Gaara? Yeah. That works for me. 
> 
> _Barbed Wire_ starts at the end of Part I and will wrap up before the beginning of Part II. Aside from the eensy matter of soulmates (and the eensier matter of crackships seeing fruition) this fic is set entirely within the canonverse.

Soulbonds weren’t about who or what you wanted. They were never a matter of _want_. Soulbonds were all about _need_.

 _And that_ , Sakura thought, _was the problem_.

**...**

**我サク**

**...**

Maybe the universe had condescended to do her a good turn in the wake of failing so spectacularly to return Sasuke to Konoha. More likely it was just luck. For whatever reason, just this once, Sakura saw Gaara before he saw her.

Naruto and the other boys kept giving her _looks_ , like they were waiting for some great figurative spigot to turn and trigger another round of waterworks, and Ino was being so unbearably compassionate that it made Sakura’s teeth ache harder than if she’d just been to the dentist. Feeling ready to burst, Sakura had searched and searched until she’d found this deserted terrace, at which point she’d perched on the guardrail to brood in peace.

The terrace overlooked the eastern end of a heavily forested park, cut through with footpaths that were commonly frequented by morning dogwalkers. But it was not morning, and prime dog walking hours were past, and the person stalking down the footpath nearest Sakura’s terrace carried with them neither leash nor dog.

They were, however, wearing a massive clay gourd which dwarfed a body so scrawny that it could only be the product of childhood malnourishment.

Sakura’s heart dropped into her belly, bounced off her stomach, and sprang into her throat. Or at least, that’s what it felt like. Also: her face and fingers had gone numb, her lungs were on the fritz, and there was an awful stitch in her chest. She thought that maybe she was having a panic attack.

Her legs were jelly, but that was the panic warping her perception: if she wanted to stand, she could stand. She yanked herself off the guardrail, scanned her surroundings, and darted across the terrace to shimmy up a cherry tree that’d been old when her grandparents were babies. 

The tree’s branches were heavy with summer fruit and formed a dense web that would obscure Sakura from all but the most alert passersby. Even if the tree had been younger and spindlier, it was well out of view of the footpath down which Sabaku no Gaara had stalked. It was fine. She’d be fine.

Sakura pressed her forehead against the tree’s trunk, risking splinters but not particularly caring because she’d known, in theory, that Konoha’s onetime enemies had come to their rescue, and she’d known the names of just _which_ ninja the Sand had sent, but none of that—none if it—had prepared her for catching even a glimpse of Gaara.

Oh, she’d _told_ herself that she was prepared for that eventuality, and at any rate, with Sasuke gone and most of her classmates half dead, she hadn’t been as upset to hear that Gaara was Konoha’s honored guest as she might’ve been otherwise. Besides, Konoha was a big village, bigger than most, big as a small city. What the _hell_ were the odds?

“That’s a terrible hiding place.”

That. _Those_ were the odds.

Sakura jolted, gripping the trunk so hard that her fingers could’ve punched holes through the bark and touched the wood beneath.

“You can come down,” Gaara went on, and Sakura didn’t know if his dispassionate tone was a good sign or a bad one.  Just to be safe, she’d assume that _all_ signs were bad where Gaara was concerned.

“Or I can come up after you,” he said, and Sakura felt that she’d be sick. Then, slowly, like an afterthought, like he wasn’t sure he meant it even as he said it, “I won’t hurt you.”

Sakura wrapped her arms as far around the trunk as they would go, hugging it like she was anywhere near strong enough to hold on should Gaara grow impatient and use his sand to yank her off her branch. Her chakra control was excellent, yes, but she’d been training under Tsunade-shisho for a matter of days, and she hadn’t yet learned how to channel her perfect chakra control into the monstrous strength it would take to fend off a shinobi of Gaara's caliber.

Sakura was trapped. Whether she came down or he came up or were the variables, but that he knew her hiding place was fixed. Gaara didn’t, _couldn’t_ sleep; Naruto and Shikamaru had told her so. He could wait her out all day and into the night until one of his siblings came to fetch him, and who was to say they’d even bother? Maybe they were happy as long as he wasn’t focused on _them_.

It was a crappy hiding place, anyway, but in Sakura’s defense: _panic attack_.

Also: Gaara had no reason to pay _her_ any mind. Right? Sakura peeled one hand off the trunk to clutch at the space over her left breast, scratching at it through her dress when it itched. _No reason at all—_

Her branch bowed a little lower, and Sakura realized too late that’d it sagged not because she’d shifted wrong, but on account of an additional weight.

“I got tired of waiting.”

Sakura almost swallowed her tongue.

And it was just as well that she still had one arm cinched around the trunk; kunoichi training aside, if she hadn’t been hanging onto something solid just now, she would’ve tumbled to uncertain death or a certain broken leg.

 _If I break my leg now_ , Sakura thought, staring at the pattern of bark before her eyes instead of looking at the person crouched on the branch behind her, _then I can kiss my apprenticeship goodbye._

She had to repeat this to herself over and over, because she was in fact very tempted to hurl herself out of the tree and onto the terrace. If she went to the hospital—if she broke her leg—no, both legs—no, if she fell into a coma—she wouldn’t have to speak to Gaara.

 _I won’t hurt you_ , he’d said, uncertain of his own promise. Yeah, the thing was: that wasn’t what Sakura was afraid of.

Still. Resignation hit her like a slow-burning stomach ache. There wouldn’t be any getting out of this one; all she could do was salvage the rest.

Sakura’d been straddling the branch as she clutched the trunk; now, she released her death grip on the trunk but kept one hand on it to steady herself as she squirmed around until both of her legs dangled off the same side of the branch. She couldn’t quite bring herself to look at Gaara just yet, so she batted a thinner set of branches aside to look at the ground and confirm a suspicion.

There on the terrace stood Gaara, arms crossed and eyes characteristically flat. And yet, here on the branch was also Gaara, crouching with both his and the gourd’s weight balanced in the soles of his feet.

The clone— _the goddamn clone_ —blinked up at her once before collapsing into a formless pile of sand, which proceeded to race up the trunk—Sakura shrunk away from it even though it didn’t get anywhere near her—and into Gaara’s uncorked gourd.

Sakura licked her gummy lips and turned her head to look Gaara in the face. _He_ didn’t look away from _her_ as he wedged his gourd’s cork back into place.

Her eyes traced the bold strokes of his tattoo before darting away. “What do you want?” she asked. _Snapped_ , actually.

_Good going, Haruno. Snap at the homicidal Suna-nin._

Gaara didn’t _look_ inclined to pop Sakura like a squeeze toy; he made no move to uncork his gourd of horrors. He didn’t look anything, really, other than his usual sickly. He didn’t _look_ like anything, no, he just— _looked_.

Which was its own nightmare, because Gaara’s eyes were as empty as ever, and he didn’t seem to need to blink. He scanned Sakura’s face, her pinched-together knees, her hands that trembled for reasons that had only half to do with her being cornered by a recently reformed murderer. He looked at everything there was to look at, but he kept coming back to her hair.

Or, Sakura _thought_ he kept coming back to her hair. He could’ve been looking at her forehead.

Sakura pinched her lips together, hysteria receding as indignation shouldered itself to the forefront of her mind. So, she had a mutant forehead. So the hell _what_? Her forehead was a monstrosity, but Gaara’s was frankly worse. Maybe he’d just never seen another forehead that came close to his in sheer freakish proportions. Maybe that was all there was to it—

Gaara stopped staring at Sakura’s hair and-slash-or forehead. He met her eyes.

“You’re old enough to have a soulmark, aren’t you?” he asked, and the word _soulmark_ wasn’t even all the way out his mouth before the blood started rushing in Sakura’s ears, and it only got worse when he said, “Let me see it.”

**...**

**我サク**

**...**

Here’s the thing.

Soulbonds were all about need, but the nature of _need_ was subjective, and just _what_ you needed from your soulbonded was hardly ever clear at the outset.

It was a fairly shitty system, was the general consensus.


End file.
